Researcher, Frontier Assurance (AI)

Location: San Francisco, United States

Salary: $380,000–$500,000 per year, plus equity and eligible performance-related bonuses

Company

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company focused on developing and safely deploying general-purpose artificial intelligence.

What you will do

• Design technical assessments of frontier AI risks with external evaluators and internal teams, identifying safety claims, evidence requirements, assessment methods, and coverage gaps.
• Support third-party assessments and embedded audits by translating research questions into experiments, analyses, and reproducible evidence.
• Collaborate with external researchers by providing model and safeguard access, technical documentation, data, system context, and information about configurations and limitations.
• Design secure assessment environments and build tooling for auditing, evaluation workflows, evidence collection, and tracking model or safeguard changes.
• Run experiments on behalf of evaluators when direct access is constrained, reproduce external findings, investigate discrepancies, and test proposed mitigations.
• Document methods, findings, limitations, and uncertainty for evaluators and internal decision-makers.

Requirements

• Strong software engineering skills and experience building research tools, evaluation infrastructure, or systems for analyzing complex data.
• Practical experience with modern machine learning systems, including experiment design, evaluation execution, and result interpretation.
• Ability to navigate unfamiliar codebases and infrastructure, debug across system boundaries, and turn ambiguous research requests into reliable technical implementations.
• Sound judgment in experimental design and measurement, including identifying confounders, limitations, and gaps in evidence.
• Ability and interest in working closely with researchers, explaining technical systems, and helping investigate difficult questions.
• Commitment to independent scrutiny and rigorous assessments that challenge internal assumptions.
• Understanding of, or strong interest in, frontier AI risks, alignment, and safeguard evaluation.

Nice to have

• Experience with AI safety evaluations, adversarial testing, security research, or technical auditing.

Culture & Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance with employer contributions to Health Savings Accounts.
• 401(k) retirement plan with employer match, flexible or accrued paid time off depending on exemption status, paid holidays, and paid company office closures.
• Paid parental, medical, caregiver, sick, and safe leave.
• Mental health and wellness support, employer-paid life and disability coverage, and an annual learning and development stipend.
• Daily office meals, eligible meal delivery credits, relocation support for eligible employees, and additional taxable fringe benefits.
• Work focused on independent evaluation, public transparency, and improving the safety of advanced AI systems.

Hiring process

• More detailed benefits information is provided during the hiring process.
• Background checks are administered in accordance with applicable law.